KQED members disenfranchise themselves

The membership of San Francisco's KQED gave up their right to elect the station's board of directors in a three-week mail balloting, the San Francisco Chronicle reports today. They voted two-to-one to end the board elections, which the station said were expensive ($250,000 was the cost cited) and delayed decision- making. Large majorities also voted to change the licensee's name to Northern California Public Broadcasting and make five other changes to its legal documents, according to KQED's announcement yesterday. KQED said it received about 30,000 ballots from its membership of 190,000, or about 15 percent of those eligible. Most stations have self-elected boards or are parts of larger nonprofits that do.